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What are you currently reading?

The thread where we talk about what books we're enjoying. Please feel free to talk about your favorite authors, your e-readers and tablets, your favorite series of books, book signing events, etc.

I'm currently reading Vince Flynn's debut, Term Limits. I'm about 2/3 through, and it's excellent. It's interesting to read a political thriller that was written in 1997 - before 9/11.

A friend recommended Flynn to me, saying that his main protagonist seems to be the inspiration for 24's Jack Bauer. This character does not appear in the debut, but evidently many of the characters in this novel appear in the Mitch Rapp novels.

Very highly recommended if you like political/spy/terrorist thrillers.

Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally

I'm reading The Melancholy of Resistance By Laszlo Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian writer....I've read two other novels of his, and this is the third in a row I'm tackling. Great writer.
I also usually have a couple volumes of poetry lying around--I read a lot of poetry, in fits and starts.

Don't laugh, but I'm reading The Hunger Games Trilogy and I'm on the last book, "Mockingjay." I know, it's marketed to "young adults," but the truth is that it's a very intelligent, exciting and relevant series. And a total "page turner!" Somebody in the band I tour with loaned the first book to me when I forgot to bring something to read for one of our trips. I wasn't expecting much, but boy, was I surprised!

Excellent stories (written in a style that some will hate) - and almost every book is set in some current-day hot spot. He's had books set in Ireland during the troubles, Pakistan, Yugoslavia / Balkans, during that war, South Africa, before they came out of apartheid, and so on.

His style is very English, with little accommodation to the language preferences of those on this side of the pond.

Reading the first tome (it's freaking huge) of Brandon Sanderson's "The Way of Kings". Sanderson is the one who picked up Robert Jordan's Wheel of time series after jordan died and is finishing it, so if you liked that one you will probably like his newest series. They are written in a similar style, but the stories are far, far different.

Currently splitting time between Pete Townshend's new biography, Charles Bukowski's "Ham On Rye" and "Sorry Please Thank You: Stories" by Charles Yu.

The Yu book is a collection of unusual short stories, most of which could be considered SciFi of a sort. The best one is entitled Yeoman, about a yeoman on a space vessel whose mission is to "boldly go where no man has gone before", who finally is to be included in an "away team" with the captain and who comes to the realization that he is the one on this mission (and there's one on every mission) who won't be coming back.

No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful. - Kurt Vonnegut

The Hobbit. I’d avoided it because I’d heard it described as comparatively “juvenile” compared to the LOTR trilogy but, what with the film coming up and all...

Incidentally, I remember when the animated version came on TV back when I was a kid. I wanted to watch it but Mom wouldn’t let me, the dragon scared my sister. Possibly the only time we weren’t allowed to watch something because she was scared of something in it!

Reading "Second Foundation" by Isaac Asimov, working my way through the Foundation series again.

You're a brave man. I read them all when I was 14 or 15. The first one was pretty good.

In addition to my regular rotation of 15 or so comics a month, I've got Bourbon, Straight: The Uncut and Unfiltered Story of American Whiskey by Charles Cowdery and F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. The latter is a little meh.

The Hobbit. I’d avoided it because I’d heard it described as comparatively “juvenile” compared to the LOTR trilogy but, what with the film coming up and all...

Incidentally, I remember when the animated version came on TV back when I was a kid. I wanted to watch it but Mom wouldn’t let me, the dragon scared my sister. Possibly the only time we weren’t allowed to watch something because she was scared of something in it!

Ugh. I taught that book a couple of years ago. Dreadful. Tolkien just goes on and on and on and on and . . .

I own the DVD of the animated movie. It's slightly better.

(BTW Mike, you're sig is being posted in your message line, so quoting you pulls up the entire sig you've got entered. Not sure why this is happening.)